Welcome to our Caddo Lake State Park blog! We didn’t pick this place, but boy was it a great state park. 10/10 highly recommend. For a brief run down, the park was easy to get to and close to town if we needed anything. It was very clean and well maintained and a really great bathroom (that was heated!!). Read more on the specifics below about Caddo Lake State Park and what we did when we were there!
Let’s start it off preparing to get on the road. Usually I’m (Danielle) very much on top of planning way in advance. I have the van ready, groceries packed, everything done in advance, except for this time. This trip, we wanted to leave around 11 and we started getting everything ready at 8 am. Now, I did have time to get the groceries done. But, they were all in a bag in our fridge and not packed up.
The first thing we had to do was get everything out of the van. We are in the middle of our build and basically using the van for storage. It holds everything we are working on and will work on. So before the trip we need to get everything out! It helps me plan better with a blank slate too! The plan was to pack up the van in an organized way. This made it easy to set up camp when we got to the park. With that in mind, we made sure we got our bed made up first. That way we can lay everything on top of it to prevent as much sliding as possible. After we made up the bed, we got started putting together our kitchen necessities. Click here to watch the reel! The storage bins that we have are no longer on Amazon. However, I found these really nice ones that are similar here.
We filled our storage bins with pantry foods, snacks, and seasoning. Then, we filled up the cooler. We brought way more beer than we needed. We didn’t lack for anything while we were there. Once the cooler was done, we just threw some clothes into a bag and hit the road!
The drive from DFW to Caddo Lake State Park was just around 3 hours away. Not too far of a drive for a nice Sunday afternoon. Once we got on Highway 20, we stopped in Terrell, TX at the Buccee’s for lunch. After lunch, we got right back on the road. The 3 hour drive felt much quicker, more like a 30 minute drive. Suddenly, we found ourselves pulling into Caddo Lake State Park.
Checking in was super easy. The headquarters has a wonderful museum area, gift shops, bathrooms and super friendly staff. Check in took about 5 minutes. They also informed us about the free firewood. Donations are accepted, but not required. We donated!
The Setup
Driving to our site was straightforward and lead us right to our campsite. We stayed in the Squirrel Haven campground, site 41 which was right between two bathrooms! Once we pulled in, we immediately set up camp. We have a folding table. We used it as our kitchen area. We stored all our kitchen items in one place using the storage bins. Once we had everything set up inside the van, we needed to level out the van. If you have ever slept somewhere that wasn’t leveled, you know how it can mess with your sleep. At least for us it does. There are many different types of levels. These include blocks. However, we decided to use Flat Jack. You can purchase it here. The best thing about the Flat Jack is that it’s super easy to use. It’s especially useful if you are a solo traveler.
We strung up our LED Battery String Lights. We connected our extension cords and starlink. We made our van look as homey as possible. We wanted to set up the van to match our floor plan as much as possible. This really was a great idea. Laying on the bed, we could really visualize what we wanted out of the van build out.
We checked in with my mom, who was also camping there with some friends. Then, we came back to our campsite to make dinner. After that, we headed back to their campsite for a late night fire session. Dinner was Veggie Pasta and it was super easy and delicious. We just threw together broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms and corn with cooked pasta, Alfredo sauce and some cheese. Like I said, super easy! After dinner, we walked back to their campsite and ended the night with a nice fire, laughs and some wine.
The next morning, after a little bit of sleeping in, we had our morning coffee and checked into work. After a couple of hours, we dog sat for my mom. She went to do a Swamp Tour. We had lunch. We are experimenting with our mini waffle maker and made steak quesadillas! Check out our video here.
After lunch, Gertie was picked up. We had some friends come over to our campsite. We enjoyed some beers and chatting. Then we decided to go check out the Saw Mill Pond. It had a beautiful dock. You could rent kayaks through the headquarters!
Saw Mill Pond
Saw Mill Pond is filled with cypress trees, bayous, and wonderful wildlife and views. Fun fact, the surrounding forests of cypress and pine trees were essential to the operation of sawmills that helped the grow the surrounding towns, which is how it got it’s name! We saw people enjoying kayaks through pond, fishing from the dock, and we took numerous photos. If you are wanting to rent a kayak, please do so at the headquarters for the most up to date fees.
After exploring the lake and the dock, we headed decided the rest of the day needed to be a restful day. We started a fire, I pulled out a small puzzle and played games with our group. We played a game called, Blank Space – you can check it out here. It was a really fun game where one person pulls a card that has two words with one of the words being blank. Everyone will secretly finish the word and if you match with 1 other person you get 3 points and if you match with 2 or more people you get 1 point. It’s that easy. It’s a great camping game – that we will be purchasing!
Later that evening we made dinner, which consisted of whatever we could find, since I left our pork at home. We ended up having left over steak from the lunch and I just threw that together with some pasta and an olive oil sauce that, for the life of me – I can’t remember what I did. And then like the night before, we ended the night next to a fire before heading to our van to go to sleep.
And just like that, we are on the last day of 2024. We woke up after a really restful night sleep. Probably the best night sleep we have had in the van to date. It’s funny because at home, Malcolm is a night owl, but in the van – it’s a 11pm bed time for him. I made us coffee as normal and made a little fire that didn’t last too long, but we tried. The wood we had was wet, so it was hard to start a nice base to get it nice and hot to get the wood to burn. We only made 2 good fires while we were camping, and both were made by Malcolm. He is going to be the fire maker going forward.
As we were thinking about how we wanted to spend the last day of the year, we decided the best way to start it off was a quick hike through Caddo Forest Trail!
Caddo Forest Trail
The trail is an easy trail, with being 0.6. miles loop. It starts at the Saw Mill dock and ends at the dock. There are multiple bridges and a really easy trail. Well marked through out the way, even though there were some closures due to maintenance.
After we hiked, we had a quick lunch – using our mini waffle maker. Ham and cheese melts! It was super easy to make and super delicious! After a quick rest, we headed over the other side of the park to our friends campsite to start our pot luck. Everyone brought a little something, like black eyed peas, collard greens, and our friend Mike made the best Cubans I’ve ever had. We went around the fire talking about our 2025 plans and all the things that make us who we are today. It was a great way to get to know new friends and even learn something new about people we’ve known for years.
Around 10pm, we wrapped up the evening with friends and it was time to spend the last few hours just us in our future home. We headed back to the van and had a couple more drinks, tried to start the fire again but it didn’t really pan out. Then before we knew it it was 11:57pm and it was time to toast and ring in the new year!!
The next day was time to pack up and head home. Packing up was pretty simple, as we just threw everything on the bed and made sure nothing could slide around while driving home. We dumped all our trash in the dumpster and hit up our friends campsites to have a quick breakfast that Mike made (another banger of a breakfast dish) and said our goodbyes. This trip was an amazing camping trip filled with lots of laughter, great food and drinks and good quality time with family and friends as well as good us time.
Thank you for reading our vanlife camping blog! If you want to follow our journey in other places you can check us out on all social channels under Taite Travels.
Thanks for reading!
Danielle & Malcolm
YouTube Video
Shop This Blog
| Product | Link |
| Storage Bins | Amazon |
| Flat Jack | Van Outfitters |
| LED Battery String Light | Amazon |
| Blank Space Game | Amazon |
Resources
AllTrails | Caddo Forest Trail
Caddo Lake State Park Reservations
Gallery
